


watch the sunlight coming through

by mypatroclus (bonesbuckleup)



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Kid Fic, M/M, jim kirk isn't ready to be an adult, leonard mccoy just wants to get some sleep, sam kirk is an asshole (in all the best ways), winona kirk is a good mom
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-19
Updated: 2014-05-17
Packaged: 2018-01-25 12:27:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1648625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bonesbuckleup/pseuds/mypatroclus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When people ask – and they will – Leonard’s going to say it started with a phone call at 3am on a Friday morning.</p>
<p>It actually started with Jim Kirk being the biggest dumbfuck Leonard ever made the mistake of befriending.</p>
<p>But that’s not exactly poetry, so he’s gonna go with the first option.</p>
            </blockquote>





	watch the sunlight coming through

**Author's Note:**

> title from rita ora's 'i will never let you down' which was on repeat for 90% of the writing process for this fic.
> 
> massive thank you to bri for betaing this and being my cheerleader you are a super star!

When people ask – and they will – Leonard’s going to say it started with a phone call at 3am on a Friday morning.

It _actually_ started with Jim Kirk being the biggest dumbfuck Leonard ever made the mistake of befriending.

But that’s not exactly poetry, so he’s gonna go with the first option.

-0- 

At one point in Leonard’s life, phone calls at 3am were things that could be dealt with by mumbling a quick “fuck off” and hanging up, but now he’s 28, divorced, and a trauma surgeon at UIHC. 

So now when his phone rings, even at 3am, he has to pick up, because it could literally be the difference between life and death.

So he flings his arm out and fumbles around on the bedside table and grunts something he hopes sound vaguely similar to “hello” into his phone, but doesn’t bother to open his eyes just yet, because unless someone’s guts are literally hanging out of their stomach, he’s not ready to wake up yet.

“Wake the fuck up Leo, it’s an emergency and I needed you awake two hours ago.”

And Leo has no idea who’s phoning him – because he doesn’t always remember to check the caller id when he gets calls at _3 a-fucking-m_ – so he just swallows and says, “Uh,”

“Did you hear me Leo? It’s Sam, and I need you to _wake the fuck up_. I’m calling a red code, this is DEFCON 1 shit right here.”

Then it’s like Leonard’s on autopilot, because he’s hunting down pants before he can even fully understand the words, because code red is when it’s fucking _Jim_ and of course he chooses a batshit insane fire-fighter to be his best friend.

“What happened? I can be at the hospital in ten minutes.” He’d break about fifteen traffic laws, but he’d be there.

“What? The hospital? Why the fuck would you go to the hos—Oh shit, no, _God_ no, shit, sorry, fuck Leo, I mean it’s bad but it’s not that bad.”

“What the fuck is it then?” Leonard’s can hear himself snapping, but he doesn’t give a shit considering his best friend’s dickhead brother just gave him a heart attack.

“Jim’s fine, Leo. But I need you to come to mom’s house, like now.” There’s rustling over the line like Sam’s moving, and then a noise that sounds like it belongs to something that dragged itself out of hell reaches Leonard’s ears.

“What the hell is that noise Sam?”

“That’s why we need you here, my friend. Mom’s got your lucky coffee mug out, see you in ten.”

Then Sam hangs up on Leo before he can say anything, and he’s left standing half dressed in the middle of his bedroom, confused as all hell, because what  is Leonard’s life?

-0-

Moving to Iowa when Jocelyn divorced him had made sense, it was far away enough from Jocelyn that he didn’t want to drink until he couldn’t stand anymore, and UIHC had a level-1 trauma centre and were willing to give him a job.

But then he met Jim Kirk and got forcibly adopted into his friendship and his family, and nothing made sense anymore.

Leonard makes it all the way to his car before his phone goes off again, this time with whatever shitty pop song Jim’s set his ringtone as this week, and when Leonard answers he’s greeted to Jim asking, “Are you on the way?”

And even though he knew Jim was okay, Leonard still slumps in his seat in relief, because code red means that Jim’s in the hospital, and that for once there’s nothing that Leonard can do, and if he ever hears those words again, it’ll be too soon.

With all that in mind, Leonard feels completely justified in answering Jim’s question with, “Your brother’s a dick.”

“Yeah I know. Bones, I need you to be on the way.”

“I’m in the car now. Do you want to tell me what’s going on? You sound like you’ve been crying, did you watch Beaches again?”

Jim laughs, but it sounds like someone punched him in the chest more than anything else.

“Bones, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

And then he hangs up, and seriously, _what the fuck is his life?_

-0-

Half an hour later, Leonard’s parked on the street in front of Winona Kirk’s house, Sam and Jim’s cars taking up the driveway.

Winona’s house is like Leonard’s home away from home, and little bits of his life have found their way under her roof over the years, whether that’s because he’s around there every Sunday there isn’t a crisis at the hospital for Sunday dinner, or because he was dragged to various furniture stores and helped carry most of the furniture into the house (at a discount rate, because Winona Kirk has powers and takes no shit when it comes to sales), Leonard doesn’t know. But from the shirts he could never be bothered to bring back home after spending the night, to the game room he helped Jim and Sam build, he’s always known like when the world gets too rough and he just wants to ignore it all for a few hours, Winona’s door was always open to him, and he’s grateful to the Kirk more than words can say for that.

But the safe haven Winona’s home usually provides has vanished, replaced by God knows what, punctuated by Winona opening the door and slapping a hand over Leonard’s mouth before he can even knock.

“I’m not letting you into this house until you promise to be quiet. Jim’s close to tears, and trust me when I tell you there’s been enough crying in this house for one night. Understood?”

Leonard nods, even though he doesn’t understand at all right now, and Winona grins at him before opening the door fully and announcing there’s coffee on the way.

“The boys are in the sitting room; go make sure they’re both still alive.”

“Uh, yes ma’am.”

And really, Leonard wasn’t sure what he was expecting when he stepped into Winona Kirk’s sitting room, he really wasn’t, but whatever he thought he might’ve walked in on, it definitely wasn’t Jim Kirk pacing around the room while holding a baby to his chest, while his brother tries to glare a half built crib into submission.

“What the fu-”

“If you make that baby cry, Leo, I’m going to end your life right here, right now.” Sam cuts him off, gesturing wildly with a screwdriver.

“Shut the fuck up the both of you.” Jim hisses, grip tightening on the baby ever so slightly as he makes crazy eyes at the pair of them, like he’s trying to kill them with the power of his gaze alone.

“Who does that baby belong to?” Leonard whispers, refusing to step any further into the room, because honestly? He’s only got one foot in and it already feels like he stepped into the Twilight Zone. “Because Aurelan didn’t exactly look pregnant last time I saw her.” Which was a week ago, so unless Sam has super sperm, he’s pretty sure it’s not hers.

“That’s because it’s not mine,” Sam snorts, still quiet enough to avoid waking the baby. He steps away from the half built crib, and from what Leonard can see, he doesn’t blame him. “Unlike some dipshits I can name, I know how to wrap it before I tap it.”

Leonard regrets what he does next for the hour it takes for them to pass the baby to each other in an attempt to get it to quiet down, and then the following ten minutes it takes for Winona to take pity on them and do something that ends up with the baby asleep again, but in that moment all he can do is drop his phone, turn to face Jim and break the almost silence they had been trying to maintain.

“ _It’s yours_?”

Leonard has never seen either Kirk closer to tears than the moment when the baby starts crying.

Leonard kind of wants to cry himself.

-0-

“Told you you wouldn’t believe me.”

They regrouped in the kitchen after Winona performed another minor miracle and got the baby to sleep again, and Leonard’s not entirely certain they don’t need shock blankets or something.

Leonard can feel a twitch in his left eye that won’t stop no matter what he does, and Sam is still holding the screwdriver he was using to build the crib, and Jim-(or ….)

Jim, to put it bluntly, is a mess. Leonard’s seen him drunk, sick, covered in ash and dirt from a fire, and even once, naked and covered in edible body paint. (Neither of them talk about that day, but they’ve gotten really fucking good at locking doors now) But in five years of friendship, Leonard’s never seen Jim like this.

His hair is sticking up wildly on one side of his head, his shirt is stained by God knows what, and he looks every bit as frantic as he sounds.

Normally, Leonard would take pity on him, because massive dick or not, Jim’s job is actually pretty insane, so it’s not exactly hard for Leonard to cut him some slack every once in a while and order a pizza and beat his ass on Xbox till they both fall asleep on the sofa.

But right now, he has more important issues to deal with, the main one being:

“When the _fuck_ did you get a baby?”

Jim blinks at Leonard blankly for a second before Sam nudges him in the ribs and then it’s like he’s got verbal diarrhoea, because it all comes bursting out and Leonard honestly has to struggle to understand what the blonde’s saying.

“Shit, I don’t know, about five hours ago maybe? She was left at the fire station, like that’s happened maybe twice since I’ve been there? Like babies being left there, not my baby personally, just babies in general. I only have the one. Which is still one more than I thought I had. But it’s a safe place for women who have babies but aren’t ready or don’t want them or whatever, you know? So when the guys shouted my name saying there was a package for me, I thought it was the video game I ordered—“

“You really need to stop ordering things to the fire station, Jim."

“That’s really not the problem I’m focusing on right now, Bones.”

“He does have a point though sweetie.” Winona kisses Jim’s forehead as she passes, putting fresh cups of coffee in front of all of them. “Night boys.”

Jim waits until Winona’s upstairs before carrying on. “But then it turns out it’s not my game, it’s a freaking baby in a carrier with a note saying her name is Jane,” Jim’s face does something that could either mean he doesn’t approve of his baby momma’s choice of name, or that he’s having a mild seizure. Leonard isn’t too sure. “And her mom wasn’t ready to be a mom so here Jim, have a freaking baby.”

Jim genuinely looks about two seconds away from crying if anyone makes him talk about the baby anymore, so Leonard swallows his questions, the main one being _when the fuck did he get a baby_ , and just lets the silence drag on until Sam finally lets the screwdriver go, and claps a hand on Jim’s shoulder.

“Look, it’s 4am and you just found out you had a baby, so I’m going to cut you some slack. You listening?” Sam waits until Jim nods before continuing, picking up his screwdriver again. “We still have some stuff left over from Tom that can keep you going until you find your feet, and I’ll finish setting up the crib now, and I’ll check back in tomorrow after my shift to make sure you’re still alive, but right now it’s half four in the morning and I’ve got three boys of my own and a wife that’s a lot more attractive than either of your mugs waiting for me back home, so I’m gonna head off as soon as I’m done.”

“Wait, what? You’re going to leave me with it?” Jim looks fucking terrified, and he has a death grip on Sam’s arm that was reaching for his coat, and Leonard would be pissing himself laughing if this had happened at any other time, because Jim’s a fucking fire-fighter, he’ll jump headfirst into a burning building without thinking twice, but leave him as the sole provider for a three month old baby and he begs for his older brother to stay with him. But as it is, Leonard’s just had an hour of live demonstration on how age doesn’t affect lung power, and he’s a little bit scared that if Sam leaves – if the only one out of the three of them that actually has any experience with the whole baby thing leaves – it’ll all fall to shit before Sam can start his car. “You can’t just _leave_ me with it Sam; I don’t know what the fuck you do with a baby, I’ll end up breaking it!”

“Okay, first off: _she’s_ a girl, dickwad, not an it, don’t be a fucking idiot. Secondly: You have mom, who isn’t exactly going to just let you accidentally kill your daughter under her roof. Worst case scenario, Leo’s a doctor right? That’s got to count for something.”

“I’m a trauma surgeon, not a damn paediatrician!” Now it’s Leonard who has a hand clasped around Sam’s arm, hissing in his face. Jim went pale at the word ‘daughter’, and now Leonard’s starting to freak out and it’s not even his kid, so God knows what’s going through Jim’s head right now. “What the fuck am I meant to do if something goes wrong?”

“Stop my baby brother from having a mental breakdown maybe? He’s not had the usual 9 months parents usually get to prepare before the bundle of joy turns up, so I think leaving him on his own right now is a definite tick in the bad idea column, don’t you?”

“Jim’s fine, he’s a fire-fighter; he thrives on high pressure situations.”

“No,” Sam peels Leonard’s hand off his arm and raises his eyebrows in that way that always makes Leonard feel like he’s let Sam down, which is complete _bullshit_ because Sam’s only one year older than Leonard and considering the guy’s a cop he does way more stupid shit that Leonard does.

“Jim thrives on jumping into burning buildings, and rescuing babies, and making women cry at how brave and selfless he is,” Leonard scoffs at that, because Jim has actually made women cry with his clueless ‘just doing my job ma’am’ routine before, and it’s disgusting how attractive he can be when he does that. It’s sickening, really. “Babies aren’t something he can train for, or get through by sheer dumb luck and he’s gonna need all the help he can get.”

And then Leonard just deflates, there’s not really anything can say to that, because what Sam’s saying actually makes sense.

The dick.

Sam nods at Leonard, before crouching down in front of Jim’s chair, and he clicks his fingers until Jim comes back from wherever his mind was wandering.

“Bit of tough love now, lil brother. You ready for this shit?”

“No.”

“Tough, because here it is; you’ve got a kid now. I know it seems fucking insane, and to be honest, it _is_. But it doesn’t change the fact that that little girl is reliant on you manning the fuck up and doing whatever it takes to keep her happy and healthy. And it might take some time before you feel like you actually know what you’re doing, but you _are_ going to get through this shit alive. Trust me on that one."

And then he’s gone, back into the living room to finish setting up the crib before he leaves with a parting shot of “I have faith in you two! You can totally survive till morning!”, and then it’s just Leonard, Jim and the baby.

They manage to waste another five minutes in the kitchen finishing cold mugs of coffee before they drag themselves back into the living room, the crib placed next in the corner of the room while the baby lies in the middle of the couch, pillows placed strategically around her body.

“They stop her falling off, apparently,” Jim’s eyebrows are furrowed in a way that Leonard’s learnt to translate as ‘I don’t understand but my mom said it was right so I'm going with it’ “But we should probably move her to the crib?”

“Yeah, I think it might be bad parenting to let your kid get brain damage in the first 24 hours of knowing them.”

“Fuck off.” But Jim’s smiling and unwinding enough to pick up the baby, which was Leonard’s goal, so he doesn’t bother to hide the grin that forms when Jim sits back down on the sofa without even looking at the crib.

“You’re holding her pretty good, you know.”

“Of course I am, I’m fucking awesome,” Jim pauses before glancing at the ceiling. “My mom might’ve given me a crash course on how to hold babies before you got here.”

Leonard tries to imagine a world where Jim – or Sam, for that matter – didn’t have Winona to help guide them through the adult world. It’s fucking terrifying. But it does make him think. 

“Do you know who her mom is?”

Jim does something that looks like it started out as a shrug but ended up as a sigh when the baby shifted in his arms, turning to bury her face in his chest.

“It was my birthday. Shit Bones, I don’t even remember hooking up with a girl, let alone who she could be.”

No one really talks about Jim’s reactions to his birthday, which falls a whole 9 months before the baby was born, because usually it just involves camping out at his mom’s house for a few days and watching reruns of The Golden Girls in his pyjamas. But last year Jim turned 25, and Leonard reckons if there’s ever a time to get black out drunk and get a girl pregnant, it’s the 25th anniversary of your father’s death.

“I don’t know shit about being a dad, Bones.”

There’s a part of Leonard that agrees, that wants nothing more than to phone social services and get someone who knows what they’re doing to look after the kid, because neither of them have any fucking clue what to do next.

But there’s a bigger part that sees the way Jim runs a finger across his daughters cheek, a barely there caress that makes Leonard focus on all the similarities between his best friend and the infant sleeping against his chest. Her hair was a light brown, which must’ve come from her mother along with the shape of her nose, but everything else of her came from Jim, there was no doubt about it. So Leonard moves so he’s pressed shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip against Jim and shrugs.

“You didn’t know shit about being a fireman either when you started, but I guess you don’t completely suck at it now,” Leonard can’t help his grin when he sees Jim twitch, because there’s nothing the blonde likes more than reminding everyone and anyone about the awards and thanks you’s he’s received over the years. “But there _are_ options, Jim. There’s adoption if you really don’t think you can do this.”

Leonard knows all about adoption from the days when Jocelyn was convinced a baby would save their marriage and things weren’t working out the normal way, but in the end they didn’t adopt, just divorced.

But Jim just shakes his head, his jaw clenching in the way it does when he’s made his mind up about something and isn’t changing it for anyone.

“I’m not letting her grow up thinking neither of her parents wanted her, Bones.”

Leonard laughs, because he didn’t expect anything less, not really, and just shrugs, patting Jim’s knee.

“Okay, Jim and Jane Kirk. You sound like characters from The Golden Girls.” Jim’s face twists again, and Leonard still isn’t sure if it’s a seizure or just a serious case of not liking the name, but Jim’s scowling at him before he can really decide.

“Fuck off that show is perfection; you wish you were Betty White.”

“The fact you’re being serious is disturbing, and a sign that I need new friends.”

“Like anyone else would have you.” Jim scoffs, before sticking his tongue out at Leonard. “You’re stuck with me, babe.”

“’Stuck with’ being the main phrase there.”

“Fuck off.”

But neither of them make a move to get off the sofa, and Leonard thinks that deep down, past

the insanity that makes Jim the best damn fire-fighter in the state, and past the slightly creepy obsession with 80’s shows, he could’ve made worse choices for a best friend.

Neither of them mention the fact Leonard doesn’t move his hand off Jim’s knee, either.

-0-

They fall asleep like that – Leonard using Jim as a pillow and Jim holding onto the baby and getting drool in Leonard’s hair because he’s fucking disgusting – only to be woken up by Winona what feels like minutes later but actually turns out to be a whole half an hour, and shooed off to bed as she takes the baby out of their hands, whispering something about baby bottles, and that’s really all it takes for them to leave the room as quickly as possible.

Leonard only stops briefly outside the bedroom door to phone in sick, so no one expects him at the hospital come the morning, and claiming to be ill is much easier than trying to explain his dumbass best friend found out he was a dad at 3am and now everything’s fucked up.

But then they’re collapsing on the bed, not bothering to get undressed or even crawl under the blankets.

“Will you judge me if I cry?” Jim sounds exactly how Leonard feels; exhausted with a hint of hysteria creeping in, so he slings an arm out and hits Jim in the chest in solidarity. “I think I’m going to cry.”

“I’d be impressed if you can find the energy to cry. I haven’t been this tired since med school. I might actually be dead.”

“You’re not dead, you don’t ache this much when you’re dead.”

Leonard lets out a sigh he can feel down to his bones, and Jim pats the hand resting on the blonde’s chest.

“That’s what they said in med school.”


End file.
